Not to be confused with the similarly titled 2002 Disney flop, or the Italian TREASURE ISLAND IN OUTER SPACE (1987), THE TREASURE PLANET (PLANETATA NO SAKROVISHTATA) is a 1982 Bulgarian animated feature (apparently the first such film) that takes Robert Luis Stevenson’s immortal novel for quite a ride. The film appears to have been intended for children, but is profoundly weird, indeed downright psychedelic, in its orientation. Were it released ten years earlier it would have been termed a “Head” film.
The film appears to have been intended for children, but is profoundly weird, indeed downright psychedelic…
Fillippe is a young Earthling residing in space, his home planet having become a desiccated wasteland. He’s led by his superior Captain Flint into a search for the elusive Treasure Planet. Flint, who mans a spaceship known as the Hispaniola, puts together a crew that includes Fillippe as cabin boy, a battery-operated parrot and a peg-legged fellow named Long John Silver as first mate.
What Flint and Fillippe don’t initially know is that Silver is planning to take over the Hispaniola, and then the universe. A magnetic storm, meanwhile, briefly causes everyone to be plunged into an alternate time continuum, in which the spaceship is transformed into a 17th Century schooner attacked by floating Cthuloid monsters.
Were it released ten years earlier it would have been termed a “Head” film.
Back in the here-and-now the Hispaniola touches down safely on Treasure Planet. There the strangeness increases, with otherworldly creatures turning up that multiply when hit by lasers; these creatures are led by a computer-controlled critter named Nebuchadnezzar, who’s vanquished by a recitation from the Giuseppe Verdi opera of that title. Further weirdness is provided by a canyon that creates visual echoes and optical illusions that tend toward the horrific and sexual (inappropriately so for a kid’s movie) in order to distract from the treasure, which takes the form of a massive diamond in which all the treasures of Earth have been stored.
Visually speaking the film is a stellar effort by the late Rumen Petkov (1948-2018). He’s often credited with revolutionizing Bulgarian animation, heading Bulgaria’s Sofia Animation Film Studio until 1989, when he relocated to the US. There Petkov worked on a variety of cartoon series that included JOHNNY BRAVO, DEXTER’S LABORATORY and SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS.
Visually speaking the film is a stellar effort by the late Rumen Petkov (1948-2018).
In THE TREASURE PLANET Petkov luxuriates in old school animation very much in tune with the classics of Soviet-era cartooning, with hazy scenery silhouetted, quite artfully, against starry sky backdrops. The dumb-assed attempts at slapstick, alas, are tiresome and annoying, and the narrative is a jumble, freely juxtaposing the particulars of Robert Louis Stevenson’s tale with imagery so weird it often recalls FANTASTIC PLANET (still the ultimate in weird science fiction themed animation). The soundtrack, comprised of very eighties-centric synthesizer riffs, is likewise an annoyance, at least until it gives way in the final scenes to a nifty disco-fied rendition of “Ode to Joy”—and none other than Mickey Mouse makes a cameo appearance.
Vital Statistics
THE TREASURE PLANET (PLANETATA NO SAKROVISHTATA)
Boyana Film/Sofia Animation Studio
Director: Rumen Petkov
Screenplay: Boris Angelov, Yosif Peretz
(Based on a novel by Robert Louis Stevenson)
Cinematography: Stoycho Dzhambazov
Cast: Robert Axelrod, Robert V. Barron, Robin Levenson, Joe Perry, Mike Reynolds, Tom Wyner